Wade Brasfield of Mobile performing as "Khloe Kash." Brasfield will dress as Khloe Kash and read stories to children ages 3-8 on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018, at the Ben May Main branch library in Mobile, Ala. The Drag Queen Story Hour event has become a polarizing topic in Mobile with Baptist ministers and church members calling it immoral. Scholars and authors say that drag performances have been around for many years, and that the activities have gone more mainstream in recent years. (photo supplied by Wade Brasfield).

The Rev. Fred Wolfe, who is a leading voice in opposing the public library from hosting the Sept. 8 story event, said this week that the people he knows in Mobile "have no idea what a drag queen is or what a drag queen stands for."

Wolfe spent 25 years as pastor of the 8,000-member Cottage Hill Baptist Church in Mobile before starting the Luke 4:18 Fellowship in 2008.

Said Wolfe: "They live in a sheltered world. Really, they don't know. I learned a lot more about it when I read up on it and everything. It's a man dressed up telling stories, but it's really much more than that."

Indeed, that is where the two sides of the Drag Queen Story Hour controversy may agree: Drag queens, a performance art expressed popularly by LGBTQ communities in the U.S., are more complicated than at first glance. In fact, drag queens aren't necessarily defined by their sexuality.

But what surprises authors and scholars, some whom performed in drag themselves, is that there are people in the U.S. who have no idea about drag performances.

"The drag performance in our culture is now more accessible than it has been in the last 30 years," said Joshua Burford, director of the Invisible Histories Project in Alabama, who also teaches LGBTQ history at the University of Alabama.

Patrick Holt, an associate professor of the School of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of Arizona, said he's suspicious of people "who claim ignorance on such mainstream topics."

Said Holt: "It doesn't surprise me at all that people are confused or misinformed by the 'agenda' of a drag queen, which is to entertain. In a modern world with access to the Internet and social media, it's pretty easy to find all variations of the art of drag."

Mainstream

Drag performances have become more mainstream in recent years thanks in large part to the soaring popularity of cable TV's RuPaul's Drag Race, a reality show that concluded its tenthseason in June.

And who can forget the Prancing Elites? The all-male dance crew's popularity started in Mobile, and landed them a reality TV show on Oxygen TV.

Men dressing as women dates back centuries, and has its roots based on outdated gender roles: In theaters throughout the world, men often played the female roles because women were once outlawed from performing on stage.

Domenick Scudera, a professor of theater at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania and a drag queen performer himself, said it was once normal for men to portray the female Shakespearean roles of Lady Macbeth, Desdemona, Ophelia, Juliet, etc.

From the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, pantomime dames became a popular form of female impersonation in Europe. And even today, the British celebrate the "panto dame," a feminine character created by middle-aged men during the holiday season.

"To British children, the panto dame is just as familiar as The Nutcracker is to American audiences," said Scudera, who teaches a history of drag performance class.

Despite moments of cultural norms, history is filled with instances when cross-gender casting onstage was outlawed, he said.

"This usually happened when the performer was likened to something prurient or deviant," said Scudera. "Throughout history, audiences tend to accept male performers in female roles when they view the performers as 'safe' - meaning heterosexual or non-sexual."

Burford said the idea of the "gay pedophile" was nothing more than a "marketing ploy" with no basis in reality.

Those old criticisms emerged Monday and Tuesday, during separate County Commission and City Council meetings in Mobile.

Vickie West, the preschool director at Woodbridge Baptist Church, said Monday that the Sept. 8 Drag Queen Story Hour reading exposes young children (ages 3-8) to "content they are not developmentally able to handle in the name of political correctness."

Said Patti McDonald of Mobile: "If it's drag queens today, it will be pedophiles tomorrow."

Misconceptions

So what is a drag queen? In short, it's typically a man dressed in women's clothing and often acting in exaggerated femininity for entertainment purposes.

"It's hard to characterize all drag queens," she said. "It's like any type of performer: There are singers and musicians, there are a lot who use swear words and there are a lot of Christian performers."

Huba, though, said there are plenty of misconceptions about drag queens. Namely, she said, is the viewpoint that all drag queens are gay men.

"That's not the case," she said. "Drag is just the ability to create a character for performance. There is this stereotype that it's just gay men."

Said Burford: "Plenty of people who do drag aren't gay."

Huba also said that stereotypes exist between drag queens and transgender men or women whose gender identity is the opposite of what they are assigned at birth.

"For drag queens, this is a costume," she said. "They are not living that gender. That is not to say that transgender people can't be drag queens."

Holt, the Arizona professor, said that drag performers "don't want to be women," but rather are men who want to "celebrate" womanhood by "theatricalizing it."

"Many of us were attracted to drag because it provided safe refuge from a cruel and angry world," said Holt, who also performs as a drag queen. "It's a family that accepts and celebrates us just the way we are."

He added, "Some people in the world are always trying to sexualize anyone non-heterosexual. It's ignorant and immoral."

To Baptist ministers and their followers, Drag Queen Story Hour is immoral and should not be allowed inside a public library.

They are concerned about indoctrinating children to LGBTQ lifestyles, which they have long believed to be Christian sin.

The Rev. David Gonnella, pastor of Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, said he believes the First Amendment protects the events from being held inside public facilities when it involves "exposing children to moral deviancy."

He said, "It's the job of the community leaders like the City Council to stand up and say, 'you won't do that here.'"

Story Hour critics are also concerned about a domino effect: If Drag Queen Story Hour is allowed inside a public library, the public schools will be next.

"I am convinced that this event represents opening the door to many other abhorrent behavioral lifestyles which threatens to undermine the moral fiber of this country," said the Rev. Mack Morris, the longtime pastor at Woodridge Baptist Church in Mobile.

Burford, at the University of Alabama, doesn't see that happening at public schools. "There hasn't been a lot of drag performances in public schools, to my knowledge. Most of the boards of education have things on lock down."

Changing times

Burford said the backlash against Drag Queen Story Hour underscores what he believes is push back against the LGBTQ community aimed at keeping them "in limited spaces."

"It's like as long as they stay in the bars and at their pride parades once a year, then they are OK," he said. "But what they have a problem with is that queer people have access to public spaces. That's the real issue. And if that is the problem, I have nothing useful to tell them. We are a part of the public. We have been for a long time."

Holt, of Arizona, said that Drag Queen Story Hour events - which began in 2015, the same year in which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage - are acceptable for children.

"Drag queens reading stories seems a perfect synthesis of imagination and creativity to me," said Holt. "Children are fascinated with things and people that are 'different,' and it allows them to imagine possibilities and scenarios outside their own routine worlds."

Huba, the author from Austin, said she disagrees with critics who link the Drag Queen Story Hour with a LGBTQ agenda.

"The only agenda these drag queens are trying to get across these kids is to have fun and learn a little bit about other people and accept other people," she said. "It's really just about an over-the-top character who is there to entertain children. Kids are creative. They love color and sparkle. That's all there is to it. There is no more agenda than that."

Burford said he believes comments about "pushing a political agenda" on children is confusing. He said the implication is that "children themselves don't have a relationship with gender," which he doesn't believe.

"They don't wake up every morning and see a male or female figure interacting with a gender?" said Burford. "That seems like a non-starter to me."

Drag Queen Story Hour events in larger cities have often occurred with little public brush back. New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans and other cities have hosted them.

But recent uproar has occurred in the South, namely in Lafayette, Louisiana, where the city's mayor-president has vocalized his opposition to an Oct. 6 reading.

"I'm not surprised there are some areas around the country that just don't know about drag queens," said Huba. "Those who don't know much about it might have a misconception about drag queens and their influence on children. But children love to have fun, and love things that sparkle."

She added, "It saddens me a little, but hopefully things are changing."